A.n because I watched Under the Red Hood, and now I have a certain fondness for Jason Todd.

Disclaimer: ...Does Jason still have that stupid red helmet? Yes? I don't own anything.

He's so very sure that Bruce would burst in like he always did. That he will get away, and nothing will change. Because Bruce fixed everything and he won't leave Jason to die. The doubt starting to worm its way through his mind is terrifying. What will happen if he isn't found in time?

His entire world is shattered when he realizes he is completely on his own.

And everything turns to pain.

When he wakes up in the Lazarus pit, he is confused. He doesn't know where he is or how he got there, and once or twice he wonders, almost absently, if this is hell. It seems like it.

And then, barely three months after his confrontation with Bruce, his sort of normal life is torn to pieces, yet again, when he sees Him patrolling one night.

Bruce is not alone. He feels rage and bewilderment- both at the fact that Bruce is going to endanger yet another child, and that he has been replaced- and spends the rest of the night doing everything to just forget. He corners Grayson one night, and asks him why? Dick can't answer him, but Jason is wrapped in a warm hug before he leaves, and that kind of feels nice.

Jason stops following Bruce on patrol, because he doesn't need Bruce, he never has, and admiring the way his mentor fights is a poor way of showing it.

Jason somehow manages to crumble the fragile relationship he has with Grayson, and the sudden loss of a shoulder to cry ( mostly figuratively) on makes him angrier than ever.

Jason convinces himself that there is nothing wrong with killing the scum that make up more than half of Gotham's population.

Jason doesn't care that he's not really Jason anymore.